This ex post facto research project examines 9-, 10-, and 11-year old children who were enrolled in programs for the trainable mentally retarded in Oregon and upon whom standardized skill acquisition data were available. In each age group were children who had no, 1, or 2 or more years of preschool experience. Results of students' performance indicated significant differences at ages 9, 10, and 11 in language, academics, self-help, and motor skill performance between those who had 2 or more years of preschool and those who had only 1 year or no preschool. Specific characteristics of preschools were identified that contributed to better skill acquisition scores among the children. No differences could be found in teachers' perceptions of those who had preschool than those who did not. Children's current teachers, however, were highly supportive of preschool experiences for handicapped children. Parents did have different perceptions of their children if they had had preschool experience than if they did not.

This article describes a research effort designed to identify indicators of competencies of teachers of the severely handicapped. Two indicators of competency (amount of instruction time, percentage of curriculum materials task analyzed) were identified as contributing to 78% of the variance for all variables. A training model was described for teaching these competencies to teachers, and subsequent student performance data were reported which demonstrate that the students of teachers trained under this model perform significantly better than students of teachers not trained. The implications of this study for teacher-training institutions are also addressed.

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By definition, technology is an applied science. Ascience requires a measurement system and an applied science requires the arrangement of the environment in order that the science may have itsfull impact. Technology should be inherent both in classrooms for handicapped learners and in the . institutions which train the teachers for those classrooms.This article purports that a classroom for the handicapped is as complex an environment as any that can be found in industry. However. the technology of teaching within that classroom requires not only an arrangement or orchestration of that environment, but also a measurement system to determine if that orchestration is achieving the purpose for which the environment was created. namely, student learning. The environment includes adults who are utilizing their talents and techniques to develop skillsin 10 to 20 students, each of whom may need to be taught different skills or different levels of skills, and each of whom will learn at a different rate. Measurements must be taken to determine whether this learning is occurring and what changes need to be made in the environment in order that students acquire knowledge.Despite the fact that a classroom theoretically has all the characteristics to qualify it as a technological entity, seldom is it approached as one. There are exceptions; certainly the Engineered Classroom of Hewett, Taylor and Artuso (1969), the Data Based Classroom of the Teaching Research Infant and Child Center, (Fredericks, Baldwin et ai, 1977) and the classroom described (pages 289-302) by Haring and Phillips (1962) demonstrate that learning environments can be organized as technological entities.However, teacher training institutions seldom teach prospective teachers to approach teaching as an applied science, to examine critically how the components of the instructional environment affect other parts. Consequently, a careful evaluation of most classrooms will indicate that some children are being instructed in curricula that they have already mastered, and others are being instructed in areas where mastery of previous essential information has not occurred, thereby causing children difficulty in learning the new material. Unfortunately, most teachers have never developed, nor were they ever taught, the techniques for measuring and assessing student progress to a degree that will allow them to manage an educational environment that is technologically sound, thereby reducing instances where children are not progressing optimally in programs.For instance, few teachers use continuous data as the basis for altering a child's educational program. Yet, a technology (applied science) requires that teachers be maximally responsive to data so that they may alter a student's program in a timely fashion. This timely alteration is the crucial element of individual programming which in tum is essential in order to provide for individual differences, a provision which most eduational psychology courses profess to be the main task of good education.Therefore, thi...

The process of deinstitutionalization requires the development and evaluation of alternative residential facilities within a community. This paper describes two experimental group homes serving moderately and severely handicapped children. The characteristics of the homes, ages and types of children served, and the two staffing patterns used are described. The results of this 2-year study are reported in (1) effects of staffing patterns, (2) results with children, and (3) costs.